This paper examines how media exposure, self esteem, and religiosity influence body image of Pakistan consumers. The underpinning of this study is based on Social Comparison Theory with two additional variables (religiosity and self esteem) for understanding understand consumer attitude towards body image. A self administered questionnaire was used. 193 persons responded at mall intercepts. The Conceptual framework was empirically tested through SEM. A positive relationship between exposure to media and body image was found while negative influence was found between self esteem and body image. No relationship was found between religiosity and body image. The results showed mixed outcomes [...]

This paper attempts to study the impact of pre-specified set of macroeconomic factors on firm's stock returns for nine nonfinancial sectors listed in Karachi Stock Exchange. The macroeconomic factors included are consumer price index, industrial production index, market returns, risk free return and money supply. The studied sample covers data from 2001 to 2011. Panel analysis using pooled OLS shows that all studied sectors firm's stock returns have negative relationship with consumer price index, money supply and risk free rate, whereas industrial production index and market returns indicates a positive relationship. The results of this study have important implications for [...]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of brand equity of QMobile users. A random survey was taken using a systematic sampling of colleges and universities in a metropolitan city, Karachi, Pakistan. The questionnaire was used to collect data. The impact of each determinant was explored by using factor analysis and multiple regression analysis. The results suggested that all the determinants have a signicant impact on brand equity whereas brand response has no impact on brand equity dimension. [...]

Online purchase, in the clothing industry of Pakistan, is on a historical high. There are various factors that affect the brand trust of online consumers. This research is aimed to find the correlation between security and privacy of personal information, name of the brand, word-of-mouth, prior online experience and information quality on the one hand and the online brand trust of consumers on the other. The study is conducted in relation to a single brand, named Gul Ahmed. The sample for this study contained 387 respondents. The results of the study show that all these factors have a significant relationship [...]

This study aims to test the feasibility of using a data set of 90-day bank bill forward rates from the Australian market to predict spot interest rates. To achieve this goal I utilized the application of Kalman lter in a state space model with time-varying state variable. It is documented that in the case of short-term interest rates,the state space model yields robust predictive power. In addition, this predictive power of implied forward rate is heavily impacted by the existence of a time-varying risk premium in the term structure. [...]

This paper examines the impact of the listing of index futures trading on spot market volatility, market efficiency and volatility asymmetric responses. In order to model the effects of the introduction of index futures contracts, a modified GJR-GARCH model has been applied to examine the structural change of conditional variances before and after the introduction of index futures trading in S&P500, Nikkei 225, ASX all Ordinaries, and an equally weighted international portfolio. Additionally, this study adopts the coefficient dynamic tests to examine whether the identified impacts of index futures are consistent over time in both the individual indices and the [...]

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the leaders' change-promoting behavior on employees' readiness for change and whether the organizational culture mediates this relationship. A sample of 205 responses is drawn from employees having junior or senior level of managerial responsibilities in Karachi. The method of both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses is employed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the measurement model. The structural equation modeling method was then applied to examine the theoretical framework with the help of seven frequently reported goodness-of-fit indices. The results indicate that leaders' change-promoting behavior has a significant [...]